after gyptian started a revolution that would bring down a. decorated cia veteran. america's torture of detainees. over leaks explains why it's. taking the four. terror weapon or a deadly threat to civilians a key u.n. investigators look into whether the. korean peninsula to the brink of war. if indeed

it joins in with international. good to have you with us here on r.t. today. with news from around the world. hundreds of thousands of egyptians are expected to gather in cairo's iconic to rear square on the second anniversary of the beginning of the egyptian revolution but they are not there to celebrate instead they're holding rallies against the new government which the uprising helped to bring to power the eve of the anniversary was marked with clashes between activists and police which left dozens injured to. gas and rubber

bullets were used to disperse the protesters who tore down part of a wall preventing them from reaching parliament a cairo based reporter bel true explains what exactly is driving the people who fought for change now or two years ago but they brought themselves back out onto the streets. just off egypt's tahrir square surrounded by murals of slain protesters law graduates tarik talks about his brother who was killed during the two thousand and eleven revolution two years on tarek says the country has yet to see the changes that his brother died fighting for instead in a deepening economic crisis many ordinary egyptians are barely able to get by. the hand that. they're close to the costs are all i need street in parliament he was shot down of three bullets on the twenty eighth of january so far there has been no justice i'm twenty seven years old and i don't have any work now there are

a lot of people like me who are unemployed there are some people reach the point where they don't have to eat. right now youth unemployment levels in egypt have reached a staggering seventy seven percent which means that young people like tarek will be unable to pay for even their most basic needs even though they fought in a january twenty five revolution which demanded bread freedom and social justice two thousand and thirteen is expected to be an even harder year for egypt the people who live in these impoverished areas in cairo will be the hardest hit. while a senior economics commentator at the egyptian shrewd newspaper says the economy has significantly suffered after two years of political turmoil the problem is that the government is using the same policies to deal with this situation now especially after the i.m.f. loan with deep austerity measures taxes mainly on the poor not dealing with the corruption real corruption and the corruption. that was something. as

chronic with the mubarak regime till now with the economy at a standstill and vital subsidies being cut in twenty thirteen families living on a few dollars a day will be on able to put food on the table or roof over their heads this is despite president mohamed morsi promising to tackle key issues like bread and fuel shortages but it is not just daily economic hardship weighing on people's minds many say important goals of the twenty eleven eighteen they are praising have yet to be realized but if aleutian started on january twenty fifth which marks the there have been no serious efforts toward reform the police no serious effort to cleanse or deal with the legal structure and the traditional structure that we inherited from the bark and that continues to make abuses possible and will prevent any effort holding abusers accountable for crimes of the past january twenty third team has already seen mass protests across the country as egyptians continue to put

pressure on the new president to make their demands a reality the second anniversary of the revolution is for many not so much a celebration but a continuation of the struggle for basic rights. true for r.t. cairo. order from egypt now to mali where france is spreading its presence beyond mollies borders now sending neighboring at night apparently afraid the violence may spread and target your raynier mines crucial to a french run energy company more about just a bit later in the program. but for now a cia veteran and a man who oversaw the capture of al qaeda is third in command is facing nearly three years in jail during sentencing later today for leaking classified intelligence john kiriakou was the first to blow the whistle on washington's torture program and later revealing the name of an alleged torture at guantanamo bay he was convicted on a law which hasn't been used for twenty seven years earlier this week kiriakou

explained why he was driven to speak out. i've never gained anything for what i've said publicly that i've lost everything and i believe i was prosecuted not for what i did but for who i am a cia officer who said torture was wrong and ineffective and went against the grain i'm not naive i know that national security and intelligence and counterterrorism a very is a very tough arena i knew that there was a risk to what i was doing. but i also know that to be seeing another person and serializing human rights abuses under legal paper is not the american way and it's not something that as americans we should be engaged in we are not a lowest common denominator country measuring what is right by what others do and the american way stands for something and it is not torture i never tortured anybody. but i'm heading to prison while the tortures of the lawyers who papered

over it and the people who deceived it and the man who destroyed the proof of it the tapes will never face justice. another counterterrorism effort by the us is under the microscope the united nations has launched an inquiry into the legality of using drones worldwide investigation comes a bit of rising concern that the flowery of what's dubbed as anti terror strikes from little to protect civilians moreover rights activists suggest in pakistan alone over a quarter of those killed by cia drone attacks are innocent bystanders to use and i see the children reports what we have going on as a group of top notch international law specialist spearheaded by the un special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism launching this investigation into the drone attacks carried out by the united states in recent years there are going to be looking into the drone strikes taking place over somalia yemen again to stand pakistan and the actions of israel when it comes to the occupied territories the

group plans to look into from twenty to thirty specific strikes one of the areas they're going to concentrate on are the so-called double tap strikes where rescuers for example people running to save victims of a drone strike were attacked by a follow up or are people going to funerals this is been something that's been a big concern lately with dozens of people dying in those incidents so this is what they're going to look into it this is something that's going to last a while they will look into the numbers of casualties the identities of casualties and really the legal liabilities that might follow and this is something that we're not really expecting any kind of legal serious accusations to come out of but one of the things they're looking into is whether or not work crime is a term that can be used a very strong term so this is something that we're going to have to find out when this report was finally revealed in the months to come well is what prompted this investigation is of course growing concerns that the increased attacks and up

killing civilians and children on the ground this is something that's been a big concern for years this is something that's causing huge anti-american sentiment in like places. yemen specifically where recently in the latest drone strike two children were killed and out we saw a group of countries russia china and pakistan addressed the un human rights council and saying look we need to investigate this further so this investigation is now being launched and it's also you know the numbers really speaking for themselves one hundred seventy eight children died just in yemen in recent years eight hundred ninety one civilians since the year two thousand and four just in pakistan so this is something that needs to be addressed and the goal of this particular investigation is exactly that. by the time of this post they are moscow time this is our. last least on paper here as it so freedom of the referendum on leaving spain setting the stage for a bit of a showdown with the government in madrid. or if another

one north korea is warning over war saying it will attack south korea if its neighbor takes part in fresh u.n. sanctions and the ultimatum marks a third day of fiery rhetoric with pyongyang previously vowing more nuclear and ballistic tests but brian becker from the antiwar coalition says it may actually be the north's very militancy that's keeping the region at a tentative peace. korea is the most heavily militarized part of the planet the u.s. won't sign the landmine treaty one of the few countries not to be a signatory to it because they say they may need it in korea there's constant incidence in north korea one of those can blow up and become a major conflagration it's a serious problem every time any country says that they are going to defend themselves from the united states the united states says see you are an aggressor and thus we have the new excuse the new pretext to up the ante but i think when you look at the whole picture you can see that north korea is sort of tenacious militancy even if it appears to be bombastic in the west in the way it's presented

in the western media it's had the effect of preventing what would have been otherwise i think a war between the united states and its allies south korea in north korea that was a danger that existed in one thousand nine hundred four a very real danger it started again when bush came into office scratching scotching the normalization process that was under way during clinton so i don't think north korea is sort of. impression that it's prepared to fight is actually accelerating the conflict if anything i think it could lead to new negotiations. and tough economic times are forcing people in britain to think outside the box when it comes to making ends meet but one option which is proving increasingly popular is far from slavery coming up later this hour we look at how predatory money lenders are dragging the u.k.'s poorest and most vulnerable into a web of debt. and while senator john kerry prepares to replace hillary clinton at the helm of the u.s. state department and we look into whether he'll be able to change the course of the

very politics which has sparked a rise of anti american sentiment worldwide. catalonia has declared its sovereignty a vote in the region's parliament setting up a showdown with spain over a possible breakaway the gesture was largely symbolic with madrid maintaining a referendum wouldn't be legally binding i'm not a spokesperson for the european partnership for independence says catalonia leaving could actually benefit both sides. these sad to curry should what he has done is just to formalize something that democrats are reading now and that is that catalonia is a suffering nation we just declared that was our formally it was popularly we all know that's the case but formally that don't we i have political and legal sore inception it's no way to progress when you are alleged to be something that you are

not and it was kind of three young kids and only our nation's by the old we are not the spanish so as they will be in truck rest and in group b. tonight when we are a separate set in good terms. well not everyone is quite so optimistic color struck last sociologist of pompei your father university he says that catalonia is government is pursuing dangerous policies which may ultimately undermine the region's chances to survive on its side. carnivals come really cheap and for the moment it's really just a bunch of posturing it's mostly signing declarations and saying you know. when. the party that's currently in the government with the help of the republican left. decides that you know they're going to privatized that water and privatized the natural resources in catalonia when they're going to get rid of all of their public health care and privatized that what they're basically doing is auctioning

off the territory auctioning off all of the public and state institutions that they supposedly want all of the institutions that you build with sovereignty there auction them off to private investors so you know the question is can they be can they be independent on their own materially they could if they weren't you know auctioning things off and and granting more sovereignty then the people of catalonia. well for some time have been doing all they can to let the government know how they feel over one million of them flooded into boss alone and last year to stake a claim for independence if you could off the dot com you'll check out some more of these images from the event what i hear on air and we've got more of the day stories lined up for you that will be coming up in well just offer a short break. right

it's now a four fifteen pm here in the russian capital this is the with me rule receive islamists in northern mali have reportedly blown up a strategic bridge blocking access from the area to neighboring. france boosted its presence in north africa ultimately by deploying special forces to nigeria now they are thought to be protecting your radio mines are run by the state and companies from france and ultimately they are trying to protect their assets here we have them out for you to see now the french say the size in niger. could become a target for african islamist extremists who are threatened revenge on paris for the mali intervention against insurgents on the both niger and mali a former french colonies and of natural resources of the french energy sector is

heavily dependent upon a middle east because he told us here at r t that ultimately france is right to fear the regional repercussions of its actions both sides kind of groups and under need to start a group says there are lots of suspense and coalitions and i think it's i don't they're not sure the dynamics of the politics and region and i don't necessarily see the impact of the french intervention towards pushing them towards a political settlement because they might be able to control a certain part of the forces over there but they're definitely have unleashed their forces don't have repercussions on gross west africa or north africa there was a certain sort of precision or order down is prevented let's say for the last ten years which was able to contain the stain intentions and amount to the bank stand to which i think is going to go out of control but unfortunately the extent

intervention in libya i think was very shortsighted and it was no question it's taken wanted to have a quick in and out and didn't even consider what was going to happen afterwards so i see a chain of events from under an attack on the american consulate in benghazi to the hostage taking in nigeria and to further destabilize ation. watching r.t. and a skyscraper being constructed right in the heart of moscow's business district goes up in flames at least one injured and hundreds waited from the building after the fire broke out happened on the twenty third floor in line we've got some rather dramatic pictures there for you also reaction included. in the founder of the band sharing service mega upload is anything but desperate as he shares his new business plans we've asked him if his prosecution by america is going to meddle in his future here's a preview of the interview coming up at fifteen thirty g.m.t. however you can always watch it right now at r.t.

dot com. i'm a businessman i'm driven by the success of achieving something in the business world ok that's not a crime there's nothing wrong with that the government is quite exposed here because they went in was completely prosecutorial abuse and overreach and if norrington paul says ignoring our rights spying on us illegal search warrants illegal restraining orders illegal spying and i mean the whole war picture when you look at it showed that this was an urgent mission done in a rush to take them down i want them to go and it was a political decision to do that. now u.s. senator john kerry is widely expected to win an easy confirmation from the senate

as the next secretary of state after he testified before lawmakers on thursday president obama's nominee will replace hillary clinton as the country's top diplomat although some analysts believe he'll do little to change the old face of u.s. foreign policy. well the clinton legacy is pretty much i think the legacy of american wars and a counterterrorism policy that has usurped the usual prerogatives of the state department john kerry will not be able to fundamentally change the course of u.s. foreign policy which is again set in motion set in stone if you will because of the power that the cia and the military really wield over the direction of u.s. relations with so much of the of the world particularly the middle east and now increasingly in africa as well as well as of course south asia so every virtually

every important issue that he's going to deal with. you know in those parts of the world will be. issues which have been essentially preempted already the policy set by the military and by the cia and i think that there is very little chance that john kerry will challenge any of the fundamental directions of u.s. policy such as for example the drone war in pakistan. into the antiwar dot that we go now starting with the police who have launched a pre-dawn raid on a metroid depot in athens to remove transport workers striking against drastic wages the government had issued an emergency order forcing the employees to go back to work a deep wage cuts have been made by the greek government as part of austerity measures aimed at saving the country from bankruptcy. and protesters have come out in belgium as well against plans announced by a steel company to cut around thirteen hundred jobs trade unions according to

workers in the southern city of leeds to go on strike until monday the belgian prime minister has met with the head of the steel company asking him to rethink the mix. up and fire on sunni protesters in full lucia see. kilometers north of the iraqi capital meeting at least five dead and fourteen injured and the shootings happened after worshippers came out of friday prayers it's the most violent incident in iraq since sunni started protests protesting against the shia led government in december last year. people have died in a mudslide in a gold mining community in southern. least eighteen others have been injured in the accident triggered by several days of heavy rain in the slides of engulfed homes and blocked roads to the area that can now only be reached by helicopter. ready officials have said that using military force against iran is still an option speaking at the economic forum in switzerland president shimon peres and the

defense minister. said the threat of strikes is important as they pursue negotiations the u.s. and its allies are concerned iran's nuclear program is aimed at making weapons attack iran denies this saying it is only for peaceful purposes and cross talk today are to look at what's in store for israel after the elections including the chance of salvaging peace with the palestinians and where this aggressive stance on iran is likely to lead. the only difference in the various political parties in israel is how they go about eradicating palestinian society that's really it's just in the details but otherwise they are all ideologically a lie in that in their desire to minimize palestinian presence or to think you get away with it robert and to react to that i think it's very unfortunate to hear the use of a word like eradicate palestinian society because this is so divorced from what

i think most people in israel think about. in relation to palestinians i don't think this is is a serious except in the most. fanatic. circles which has not done very well in this election. well cash in advance any time you need payday loans have become a burden for the u.k. government to try to keep people away from companies offering an easy but back. flips of why it is so hard to break the bad money habits. payday loans tools have become a common sight in britain's towns and cities with the threat of a triple dip recession hanging over them more and more cash strapped families looking for a quick way to make ends meet with a loan from one go dot com you can borrow up to one thousand pounds for up to

thirty one days. people can actually just. go online access online ask to with longer especially up to four hundred pounds can be in the bank within fifteen minutes the buy now pay later culture has landed britain's with a whopping one point four trillion pounds in loans and credit cards the northeast in particular is seen a big increase rethink in the number of the payday loans there are popping up on the high street is that here in this part you can see there's not just one of these payday loan stores but right next to. this area is one of the poorest in the u.k. and when you take a closer look at these promises of instant cash they come with sky high interest rates. then there's no such thing as easy money but the people with financial options and these offers can appear to be lifeline. that working

providing debt is by a state what takes just moments to approve can lead to years of debt misery what happens is if i haven't got the money at the end of the month to be a repeat then of course the interest rate will continue on and then we're going to look really alone to try and pay off the period norman borlaug first with saw the most i want to first go onto quick witted want to pity you clear and it's just a never ending cycle and people are getting stuck in this trial. this practice of rolling over a loan has become increasingly common and with some companies not carrying out proper credit checks people he simply don't have the means to pay back the money and end up with their debt quickly spiraling we went to one of the representatives the leading payday loan providers why the industry seems to be lending so irresponsibly it doesn't make any sense to lend to somebody who can't afford to pay

you back so the members i represent spend an awful lot of investment in the best technology to make the best assessment of somebodies affordability on the front end of the process we don't want to mentor somebody who can't pay back and we don't want to get people into financial difficulty but these are areas of the united kingdom and some of the poorest communities so that seems quite targeted why are they choosing these areas where you'd expect that people wouldn't be able to pay back that money what you're finding is these lenders the setting up in secondary high streets where the rates are lower they're also setting up where there's a demand the situation has changed from when we used to be able to be flooded with all sorts of offers a credit to the fact that we unless we've got. an exemplary credit history we can't going to access to credit the government says it's conducting an extensive review of the payday lending sector with this site on tighter regulation but in the meantime and dave has some clear advice for anyone thinking about taking out

a payday loan nor. for new or avoid the white. r.t. reporting from sunderland you know just a moment or so people of eleanor's gusts on crosstalk. right wing t.v. host glenn beck is going to build his own utopia beck plans to put together a massive social experiment building his own city which will be totally independent from the evil grasp of government and the outside world where residents will have to learn how to survive on their own make their own things and grow their own food

the future city called independence usa will be based on libertarian principles with hints of iran flavor there will be no handouts and no help for the self-sufficiency minded residents but beck may need some help himself because building the city could cost about two billion dollars the thing is that commentators about politics like glenn beck and you horse truly have a very easy job it is easy to point out what is wrong with society but it is another thing entirely to try to change it and i want to salute clint beck for actually doing something and putting his money where his ideological mouth is now why would i want to live in the i and rand paradise of independence usa under the rule of lord beck no no i wouldn't taking marching orders from a tiny portly man known for crying on camera doesn't suit me but if you're a hardcore libertarian here is your chance to make all of your dreams come true but that's just my opinion.